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After Jean Chretien stepped down, his party had trouble raising money. That made it hard for them to retain power.

After Chretien, the Liberal caucus also had trouble rallying behind his replacement – make that replacements.

In rapid succession, first Paul Martin, then Stephane Dion and finally Michael Ignatieff had trouble maintaining caucus and party support. So each quickly resigned or was replaced leaving voters with the impression the Libs were in a constant state of flux and not to be trusted with government.

Within four elections in seven years, the Grits stumbled through three ineffective leaders, rang up a hefty debt and went from majority government to third-party status, their worst electoral showing since Confederation.

Similarly, since Ralph Klein’s tenure ended in 2006, his successors as provincial premier and Tory leader have had trouble maintaining the support of Tory MLAs and rank-and-file party members.

In their own ways, both Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford implied the very popular Klein left Alberta in rough shape. In Redford’s case, she did everything short of repeating out loud the leftist contention that Klein’s tenure had been a disaster for Alberta.

Both of Ralph’s successors have harmed his party’s fundraising efforts.

The year after he replaced Klein, “Steady Eddy” Stelmach announced that under the former premier Alberta had not been receiving its “fair share” of oil and gas royalties, so his government intended to raise the rates and collect another nearly $2 billion a year.

That caused energy companies – small independents as well as publicly traded majors – to move their rigs to Saskatchewan and (equally importantly to Tory fortunes) to stop donating money.

Under Alison Redford, who was openly contemptuous of Albertans’ live-and-let-live attitude and who set out to hector provincial residents to adopt her nanny-state ideals, provincial Tory fundraising got even worse.

In the 2012 Alberta election, the upstart Wildrose party outraised Redford’s Tories two-to-one, largely by promising to end the Tories’ attitude that the government (and its perks) belonged to them and by no longer dictating to voters how they should live their lives.

Since Redford’s troubles over travel expenses began, donations to her party have all but dried up.

And party organizers from the constituency level all the way up to the provincial campaign machine have threatened to resign in droves.

So are the mighty Alberta Tories, who have won 12 consecutive majorities and governed the province for 43 straight years, typically with broad public support, about to go the way – gasp! – of the detested federal Liberals?

There are lots of parallels – except, perhaps, the one that matters most: The Alberta Tories have not yet lost an election the way the Libs did in 2006, 2008 and 2011, and almost did in 2004.

Despite making many of the same bumbling errors as the federal Liberals, the Alberta Tories have not yet had to relinquish power. Whoever is elected to replace Redford in the next four to six months will become the 16th premier of what is still the most prosperous province in Confederation.

That’s a powerful platform from which to revive his or her party, much more powerful than the third party in the House of Commons with limited opportunity to ask questions of the government.

Also, unlike the Liberals, the Alberta Tories face no opposition party that is obviously ready to replace them. Wildrose has done an effective job of holding the Tories’ feet to the many fires Alison Redford ignited, but they have yet to seal the deal.

For instance, how come no disgruntled Tories crossed the floor to Wildrose during Redford’s troubles?

While it’s possible Alberta Tories could go the way of the Liberals, they’re not there yet.